Broadening the magazine’s appeal, her devotion to heels and the bereavement of leaving office life
time ago when I realised they didn’t do anything,” she says, sounding a bit huffy. “I only went to be involved in things and thought they were being kind by asking.”
Is she a nice boss? “I’m not sure that I’m a particularly good, mentoring, kind person, actually.” Don’t her staff adore her? “No, I don’t think so,” she answers briskly, as if she finds the idea ridiculous, “although I think most of them quite like me.” According to one insider, everyone adores her.
As the elder daughter of former Evening Standard theatre critic Milton Shulman and etiquette expert Drusilla Beyfus, Shulman grew up in a London household where equality between girls and boys was the norm. Her sister Nicola, now Marchioness of Normanby, has written several biographies, her brother Jason is an artist.
She brought up her only son, Sam — whose father is US writer Paul Spike — largely on her own. Sam is 22 now and just got a First, she tells me proudly, her voice softening. He studied history of art at UCL and is doing an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
“People make subliminal judgments about how women look that doesn’t happen with men. It’s still not a level playing field. If you’re a man you can get away with being far less physically well put together. How much time are men expected to spend on getting their hair right? Nobody expects Prince William to take a hairdresser on a royal tour but they wouldn’t be happy if the Duchess of Cambridge didn’t.” But he hasn’t got much hair? “Well that’s true, it’s probably not a fair comparison, I agree,” says Shulman, visibly relaxing and breaking into a smile for the first time.
“Listen, women are ver y demanding of themselves, but men make those judgments too.” Like men preferring women in high heels? “Well I don’t really mind that. It’s like me saying I like a man in a polo shirt. I always wear high heels — actually I find them far more comfortable than flats.”
She looks faintly appalled at my suggestion that she might slip into something sloppy at home, “unless I’m on my own sorting bin bags, although what’s going to be really interesting is how I’m going to look in my new life. I’ve got no idea what I’ll need to buy.
ife will change “in ways I can’t imagine. I’ve never not worked in an office from practically the day I left university, with a monthly pay cheque and somewhere to report to at 9.30 every morning. I’m sure it’ll sometimes feel like a bereavement, even though I chose it.”
S hu l m a n’s l o n g - t e r m p a r t n e r, journalist David Jenkins, is “horrified”, she says, at the prospect of having her at home. In her diary he comes across as the chilled if slightly long-suffering antithesis to her neurotic, grumpy, work-driven character. “He’s been used to having the house to himself and suddenly I’m going to be there.”
A friend advised her not to commit to anything for six months, “though I don’t think I can go quite that long. If you leave an incredibly nice job you’ve done for 25 years, you have to work out why. It wasn’t like I was unhappy. I wanted to change my life and have more flexibility. After I resigned I was wandering around the streets in this ‘hello sunshine, lovely blue sky, I feel so free’ way, but now it’s approaching I realise I don’t want to be that free, I need to be tethered to something; otherwise it’s just a huge gap.”
Plans include journalism “definitely”, a book “probably”, brand retail work and pro bono arts work “possibly”.
In terms of her legacy, Shulman insists there has been no single defining thing, although she’ll surely be remembered as the e d i t o r wh o persuaded the Duchess of Cambridge to pose for the front cover of Vogue’s centenary issue. “I did feel after that whole ye a r, wh a t wi t h the BBC documentary, the duchess on the cover, the National Por trait Gallery exhibition, the gala festival and my book about it all. How would I get to go on and do more of the same?”
She’s phlegmatic about the possibilit y that doors may slam shut, as so often happens when people quit influential jobs. “I’ve always been very clear about what’s a job and what isn’t. Some people have been incredibly kind. George [Northwood] who cuts my hair and Josh [Wood] who colours it have said they’d carry on giving me complimentary hair, which was amazing, because I’d thought I’d be going round to the local hairdresser and [using] bottle dye. It’s not like I’m going to disappear. I just won’t be editing Vogue. People might be seeing more of me,” she says, standing up. “That’s a worrying thought.”
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